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Here are 3 reasons why I don’t believe that calorie-counting is effective for long-term or permanent weight loss.
1. Research indicates that the metabolism of a lean or obese person is “normal” when there’s free-range to calorie intake (Hirsch, 1995). The individual eats as much as needed in order to satisfy energy requirement of the cells. If calories are reduced (diet and/or exercise) without energy compensation, then the metabolism eventually becomes disturbed and impaired, as measured by increased catecholamines and cortisol, increased pulse rate, decreased blood volume and circulation, decreased healing, decreased reflexes, increased weakness, loss of ambition, irritability, loss of libido, decreased body temperature and persistent feeling of “being cold,” and disproportionately decreased activity impulse (Keys, 1944; Bray, 1969; Garrow, 1978).
2. Being the fruit — and the curse — of human evolution, the fundamental drive to maintain homeostasis is powerful and can ultimately dictate behavior. In both the obese and the lean, a calorie deficit produces physiological and psychological concomitants of starvation. The cells in the obese starve, as would those in the lean, disrupting homeostasis, and eventually triggering behavioral responses.
3. The field of psychology has determined that will power is finite. At varying individual rate, will power eventually depletes (Ozdenoren, 2006). Neither the obese nor the lean can all permanently overcome the symptoms of semi-starvation and homeostatic disruption. Sooner or later, the drive to return to homeostasis produces defeating behavior, as observed repeatedly in clinical studies and in the real world. After a period of cellular starvation, the obese tend to become obese again, and the lean become normally lean again, in the powerful drive to reinstate homeostasis.
But What About Stored Body Fat?
The logical question is why can’t the obese use their own body fat to fuel their cells? After all, the evolutionary basis for fat cells is that they are temporary storage for surplus energy to be used later. Unfortunately, a defect in the energy regulating system has turned them into a permanent storage space. The problem: the grain-based carbohydrate and sugar content of the modern Standard Western Diet.
Reduced calories won't help long-term weight loss, if they're the wrong calories
Regular carbohydrate and sugar consumption elevates chronic levels of insulin, a powerful hormone that stores fatty acids in fat cells, blocks them there, and impairs fat oxidation in muscle and organ tissues. In other words, even though the obese store excess energy in their fat cells, access to it is blocked. A reduced-calorie diet in these individuals, therefore, only produces a state of starvation, a disruption in homeostasis, no different than that experienced by lean people when they eat less.
Then What Can Be Done to Lose Weight?
Since the hypothesis of calorie deficit and weight loss has been shown to fail most people long term, perhaps a different hypothesis should be tried: Control insulin production by eliminating grain-based carbohydrates and sugar. This leads to correcting energy and fat regulation, and finally to true and permanent fat loss.
My wife, who has engaged in various exercise programs (from cardio to weight training, from super-slow lifting to high-intensity intervals, from Olympic-style weightlifting to Crossfit) and has been on various conventional weight-loss diets, has battled the extra 30 pounds of weight for years. Finally she lost it all, but only after employing this different hypothesis. She no longer beats herself up with exercise, and she certainly doesn’t starve herself.
So Abolish Calorie-Counting?
Yes, if the goal is to go from being overweight or obese to being healthfully lean.
However, calorie-counting is useful for those who are (or have reached) a healthfully lean body weight, but want to further decrease their body fat to an extremely low level. Keep in mind, however, that for most people extreme fat loss from calorie-counting is temporary, just as the weight loss is temporary with calorie-counting in the obese. (I personally have counted calories in the past to achieve extremely low body fat — e.g. 3% — but could never maintain for more than a few weeks. If I ignore calories and just maintain my current grain-free, real-food diet, then my body fat settles at a comfortable 5% to 8%.)
The other day I went to a car-wash (too lazy to wash my own car on this particular weekend!). This was a large-scale, all-hand-wash operation that moves dozens of cars through every hour, with swarms of busy employees with rags in hands and constantly in motion, bending and reaching and squatting. If there is a job that keeps you moving, this is it — 8-hour shifts of constant bending, reaching, and squatting.
The discussion of body weight regulation (e.g. weight loss, management), therefore, ought to center on dietary control rather than exercise and physical activity.
The Standard Western Diet, which contains high amounts of grain-based carbohydrates and sugar, promotes these degenerative conditions (often referred to mistakenly as age-related diseases). The higher 
But the unspoken reality is that we use exercise to treat (or prevent) obesity and degenerative conditions caused by a poor diet, one which contains refined sugar and excess grain-based carbohydrates.
herself. This basic activity — fundamental patterns of play — is something many adults have forgotten how to do. We all probably know a few adults who’d have difficulty easing themselves to the ground without looking like awkward land mammals, much less rolling and then springing back onto their feet. I was watching a video of 
